APPLE $500 Imac MINI is out AND ipod SHUFFLE

[horndude]

Uhh, hey dude, I own 2 macs, and I use them occasionally, and yes performance wise vs x86 dollar for dollar, they are getting beat, and at the moment, beat bad.

Take the new mini mac for example, 1.25ghz chip, 167mhz fsb, dunno what the on die L1 cache size is, or what L2 size they use, at any rate, it isnt fast.Even the mighty G5 although fast when it came out, isnt fast anymore.I'd love to see apple kick some butt, but they made previous decisions that cant be erased so easily.

 

[ATIRAGEPRO]

"Steve's Jobs, is to get through Bill's Gates!!..."

Uhh, hey dude, I own 2 macs, and I use them occasionally, and yes performance wise vs x86 dollar for dollar, they are getting beat, and at the moment, beat bad.

Take the new mini mac for example, 1.25ghz chip, 167mhz fsb, dunno what the on die L1 cache size is, or what L2 size they use, at any rate, it isnt fast.Even the mighty G5 although fast when it came out, isnt fast anymore.I'd love to see apple kick some butt, but they made previous decisions that cant be erased so easily.

My point was (Which i forgot to mention ) was that the C3 from Via technologies shouldn't be compared to that of the Mac mini (or whatever it is.) A C3 is only as fast as a G4, Without a velocity engine.

 

[Qiranworms]

Re: "Exterior like Fish-eggs..."

Macs aren't suffering, and the only reason that their not controlling the majority of the market is because of the MORON that runs their advertizement department!!

Correction. The moron who USED to run their 'advertizement' department when Windows 95 came out. At this point, they are doing AMAZINGLY well in advertising. Starting when Jobs came back with the iMac, they've been on a steady climb up.

Look at the iPod...an AMAZING feat of advertising right there. Not saying anything against the product, but it was incredible advertising that brought it to the popularity it's at now.

And no, Apple isn't suffering at all. Several million iPods sold this quarter...I'd be fairly glad to suffer like that :laughing:

 

[horndude]

Well, in order to duplicate the same size format or form factor as the new mini mac at the moment using x86 hardware you have to use the ITX format motherboards, and as far as I know, the VIA C3 is the only one available, I could be wrong on that though, and if I am, then apple is really behind even further.Intel and AMD are both abandoning the series of CPU's that are in the same class as the G4 and moving on to bigger and better things.This has been apple's problem for a long time, they just cant keep up with the changes quickly enough, and they dont produce enough to get the economy of scale that the other PC makers have.

The VIA C3's problem is its tiny little L1 cache, it isnt all that fast either, but it was designed for embedded applications and low power consumption, not the PC market, even if its got a tiny share of that too.

You gotta understand, I have zero allegiance to any brand,make,model, or manufacturer, I use what works, I pay attention to how and why what makes a computer fast from both hardware and software points of view, and I call it like I see it.Im not an apple is god person, nor do I think microsoft or intel or amd is god either, they all have their good points.Having said all that, gven the choice, if I wanted to build yet another system, I'd probably go with AMD and either freebsd or linux for an OS, the rest is six of one, half dozen of another.

 

[horndude]

Re: Re: "Exterior like Fish-eggs..."

Correction. The moron who USED to run their 'advertizement' department when Windows 95 came out. At this point, they are doing AMAZINGLY well in advertising. Starting when Jobs came back with the iMac, they've been on a steady climb up.

Look at the iPod...an AMAZING feat of advertising right there. Not saying anything against the product, but it was incredible advertising that brought it to the popularity it's at now.

And no, Apple isn't suffering at all. Several million iPods sold this quarter...I'd be fairly glad to suffer like that :laughing:

Absolutely, however, they system sales havent been as good as expected, and the ipod has saved them bigtime, although their partnership with HP and ipod's has me scratching my head.Without the advent of the ipod, apple would be in some serious trouble right now more than likely.They are about to face some issues with china just like microsoft will, its going to be interesting to see what china does, so far its cheap systems with an open source version of DOS, and slightly more expensive systems with a stripped down version of XP.Its a real shame IMHO what market forces do to companies that have well thought out and well designed products, often times it just isnt enough.

 

[g5orbust]

Well, in order to duplicate the same size format or form factor as the new mini mac at the moment using x86 hardware you have to use the ITX format motherboards, and as far as I know, the VIA C3 is the only one available, I could be wrong on that though, and if I am, then apple is really behind even further.Intel and AMD are both abandoning the series of CPU's that are in the same class as the G4 and moving on to bigger and better things.This has been apple's problem for a long time, they just cant keep up with the changes quickly enough, and they dont produce enough to get the economy of scale that the other PC makers have.

The VIA C3's problem is its tiny little L1 cache, it isnt all that fast either, but it was designed for embedded applications and low power consumption, not the PC market, even if its got a tiny share of that too.

You gotta understand, I have zero allegiance to any brand,make,model, or manufacturer, I use what works, I pay attention to how and why what makes a computer fast from both hardware and software points of view, and I call it like I see it.Im not an apple is god person, nor do I think microsoft or intel or amd is god either, they all have their good points.Having said all that, gven the choice, if I wanted to build yet another system, I'd probably go with AMD and either freebsd or linux for an OS, the rest is six of one, half dozen of another.

I thought the C3 was VIA's big entrance into the mainstream chip market for desktops?

 

[horndude]

VIA may think so, but from what ive seen its looking like its going to end up being used by other manufacturers to use as a base to build other things, like home theater or entertainment type systems and in other areas where a medium performance embedded system is needed that may or may not need both low power consumption and low noise, the 1ghz and below models can be setup w/o a fan.Its tough to say how these things will end up.

I read an article on OS news a few days ago about some guys that write OS's and kernels for a living, they experienced the same deal, their idea was workable and profitable, but was rejected by the market they were seeking for reasons they didnt understand at the time.They ended up having to use the same idea they were using, just built up on top of another OS, in this case linux, not because it was better, but because their buyers didnt want to change to another OS even if it was better in the long run.

I think the VIA C3 may end up the same way, its intended market isnt buying it.Its been around for awhile, even TigerDirect sold it for a few months, then dumped em at clearance prices.I snagged one for $70 shipped to my door.I think VIA thought jumping into the CPU/MB market would be an easy transition, im guessing they will end up either dropping it and staying with what they do best, or be forced to up the ante and offer something more powerful, if the desktop market is what they want.The PC business is such a hard to figure out and fickle business these days, your guess is as good as mine.

I think the mini mac is an excellent idea, but just a bit late in coming out, theyve been lacking a low price entry level system for quite awhile.I will say one thing for apple, nobody comes even close to the stylish packages they put their systems in, they are neat looking thats for sure.Even my ancient imac I have sitting here is still cool looking after all these years.

Personally I think the home computer market is going to get a bit stale for a year or so, there's nowhere to go, other than dropping prices, making things smaller and cheaper, what else is there?All the needed speed problems have been met, todays high end systems are blazing fast already, I wouldnt want to be making the choice about where to go from here if I was in that postion

 

[g5orbust]

If I remember correctly, some Asian government (I think the Chinese but it could be the Taiwanese) dumped a ton of cash into VIA to develop cheap, well performing processors for them. So I think thats the origin of these chips.

I could be wrong but I remember reading that in some magazine a while back.

 

[waynejkruse10]

If i was going to buy that computer, i wouldnt be buying for performance. All i would use it for is internet, dvd playing and burning, word processing, photo editing etc. For that price, i admit i could get a pc which could play games much better but its a very good idea from apple. I would rather buy one of those macs than a crap dell Celeron machine, even though the celeron could play better games. I would buy that machine just to use the wonderful os x.
Wayne